Stocks managed to recover all of Thursday’s big losses on Friday, and then some, and the major equity market indexes were signaling a slight positive open on Monday. Investors are still recovering from major selling and volatility, but the longstanding trend of buying every dip just has not been working for some time now. Investors should be rethinking and considering how they want their investments and assets positioned for 2019.
24/7 Wall St. reviews dozens of analyst research reports each day of the week in an effort to find new ideas for investors and traders alike. Some of these analyst reports cover stocks to buy, while some cover stocks to sell or to avoid.
Additional commentary has been added on most of the daily analyst reports, along with trading history. The consensus analyst price targets and other valuation metrics are from the Thomson Reuters sell-side research service.
These are the top analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations seen on Monday, January 7, 2019.
Adobe Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) was raised to Buy from Hold with a $262 price target (versus a $226.19 prior close) at Pivotal Research.
Advance Auto Parts Inc. (NYSE: AAP) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight with a $205 target price (versus a $158.81 close) at Barclays.
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) was raised to Buy from Hold and the target price was raised to $1,240 from $1,000 (versus a $1,078.07 close) at Pivotal Research. The parent of Google closed up 5% on Friday and was shown with a flat indication on Monday. Its consensus target price was about $1,350 coming into this call.
Altria Group Inc. (NYSE: MO) was downgraded at Cowen to Market Perform on Monday in a sector call, along with British American Tobacco and Imperial Brands. The firm noted that industry volumes should drop by 8% per year from 2018 to 2025, a faster drop than price hikes will be able to keep up with.
Arista Networks Inc. (NASDAQ: ANET) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight with a $250 price target (versus a $206.50 close) at Morgan Stanley.
Big Lots Inc. (NYSE: BIG) was downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight and the target price was lowered to $33 from $43 (versus a $30.09 close) at Morgan Stanley. The stock has a 52-week trading range of $26.21 to $64.42.
Constellation Brands Inc. (NYSE: STZ) was raised to Neutral from Negative with a $174 price target (versus a $166.62 close) at Susquehanna.
Dollar General Corp. (NYSE: DG) was raised to Overweight from Sector Weight with a $125 target price (versus a $108.77 close) at KeyBanc Capital Markets.
Epizyme Inc. (NASDAQ: EPZM) was raised to Outperform from Market Perform with a $12 price target (versus a $7.94 close) at Leerink. This was on the heels of a nearly 33% gain on Friday after the company announced the registration path for Tazemetostat for follicular lymphoma and also gave a pipeline update along with 2019 guidance.
Five Below Inc. (NASDAQ: FIVE) was raised to Overweight from Equal Weight with a $118 price target (versus a $107.97 close) at Morgan Stanley.
Hyatt Hotels Corp. (NYSE: H) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Merrill Lynch.
Lennar Corp. (NYSE: LEN) was raised to Overweight from Sector Weight with a $50 price target at KeyBanc Capital Markets.
Owens-Illinois Inc. (NYSE: OI) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Barclays.
PNC Financial Services Group Inc. (NYSE: PNC) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy and the price target was lowered to $144 from $154 (versus a $121.23 close) at Goldman Sachs.
PulteGroup Inc. (NYSE: PHM) was raised to Overweight from Sector Weight with a $32 target price (versus a $27.20 close) at KeyBanc Capital Markets.
PVH Corp. (NYSE: PVH) was raised to Buy from Neutral but the target price was lowered to $145 from $170 (versus a $93.87 close) at UBS.
Salesforce.com Inc. (NYSE: CRM) was raised to Buy from Hold with a $164 price target at Pivotal Research. The stock was also added to the Best Ideas List at Wedbush Securities. Shares of Salesforce.com previously closed up almost 6% at $137.96, and they were indicated up another 2% at $140.70 on Monday, in a 52-week trading range of $102.37 to $161.19 and with a prior consensus target price of $171.78.
Skyworks Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ: SWKS) was downgraded to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer.
Silgan Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: SLGN) was raised to Buy from Neutral with a $27 target price (versus a $23.66 close) at Citigroup.
Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) was downgraded to Hold from Buy and the target price was lowered to $6 from $8 at Pivotal Research. Snap closed up 4.7% at $5.95 on Friday but was indicated down about 1% on Monday. Its 52-week range is $4.82 to $21.22.
Spotify Technologies S.A. (NYSE: SPOT) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Guggenheim. Spotify closed up 8.7% at $118.51 on Friday but was indicated down about 1% on Monday, in a 52-week range of $103.29 to $198.99.
Trustmark Corp. (NASDAQ: TRMK) was downgraded to Underperform from Market Perform at Raymond James.
Urban Outfitters Inc. (NASDAQ: URBN) was raised to Hold from Sell with a $35 price target (versus a $31.68 close) at Deutsche Bank.
See also six health care picks are set to scream higher in 2019 and five stocks under $10Â that have big analyst upside calls for 2019.
Friday’s top analyst upgrades and downgrades included Bed Bath & Beyond, CBOE, eBay, Etsy, Intel, Netflix, Nokia, Snap, UTC, Vonage and many more companies.
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